Chances
by moonmythology
Summary: Nathaniel Howe and Belinda Cousland are childhood sweethearts, but Nathaniel's overprotective nature makes Belinda feel suffocated. Does love really end? If so, how soon should you let go? NathanielxFCousland


**Chances**

A/N: This is a new series I'm starting. If reviews are ok, I may continue this. No, I have not abandoned _Blight Rose_. I just wanted to do a Cousland who feels a little bit more repressed.

I took some liberties with Nathaniel's character here. I made it a little more darker than in the game, because I wanted him, with the female Cousland represented here, to grow and to learn more about love through pain and loss. Sometimes when we love too much, we forget how much it imprisons the people we love.

For those who have love, lost and hope to find love again.

**Part I: Prisons**

My legs almost gave way. There was no knowing how far up the roof was. I could not tell how many steps I had taken. Maybe three hundred. Uneven winding staircases are made to keep enemies from the top of the tower. Sometimes I believe that they are made to keep us women out of there too.

"We're almost there," Nattie reassured me, flashing an angled smile. With one hand, I gathered the long hem of my gown. With another, I took his gloved hand. Even with those gloves, I could tell that his hands were rough, but gentle.

I took another step. A piece of silk escaped from the bulk I gathered. My foot got caught on its weblike smoothness. I expected to slide down the spiral steps. A quick way down. But stable arms caught me, as he always had. I was being lifted up. My feet was no longer on the ground. I was in heaven staring into his dark eyes.

"My delicate flower," he whispered. His breath smelled like summer. "I guess I will have to carry you all the way up."

I nodded but forgot to breathe.

There were probably fifty steps more before he set me down at top. The spring wind blew at the top of the tower, almost freeing my hair from its tight bun. Viols from the feast below sang of happiness. The village, forests, hills, and rivers stretched before me as I gazed far into the never-ending horizon. He was with me.

"Beautiful," was the word that escaped from my lips.

The splendor of the scenery distracted me, until I heard the nervous rhythm of his steps pacing the circumference of the small tower. His eyes were on the ground. One hand was hidden behind his back.

At last, I met his anxious eyes. I wanted to console him, to ask if something was wrong, but then the expression of his face shifted into determination. He marched towards me, with one hand still on his back.

What in Thedas is going on? I wondered.

One gloved hand sought my hand again. He knelt on the ground.

Oh, Maker.

"I love you, Belinda Cousland," he declared. I always have." The twilight's remaining rays danced on his earnest face. I have no words. I could not remember when tears started welling from my eyes. He loved me.

I replied, "I love you too."

Tears glistened from his eyes too, and I saw the happiest smile I have ever seen. "Will you marry me, Belinda Cousland?"

"Yes."

He rose. His fingers slipped a diamond studded ring into mine. It was his mother's. Then his lips met mine.

My first kiss.

I was fifteen. He was two years older than me. People have always told me that we were destined for each other, that I was born for him.

Probably ever since he invaded my nursery, our parents have come into an understanding: that I would someday marry him. No, we were not betrothed, but it was something that was agreed upon by sly smiles.

Castles have prisons not only for wicked men, but for some who live in it. It was mine. Nattie made my prison bearable. Father was often away, but Nattie was almost always there for me whether it was through letters or his very person. I always looked forward to summer because on summers he was always with me. With him, I was never lonely. Whenever we got into trouble, he always took the blame.

He taught me most of the things I know, like bows, daggers and swords. "Girls," he said me, "especially beautiful ones, should know how to fight." Mother was a battlemaiden but she never taught me how to use swords. She allowed Nattie to teach me, I suppose.

When his mother died, I took him in my arms and told him: "From now on, think of my mother as your mother as I have always thought of yours as mine."

Yes I did love his mother. Aunt Clarissa was very kind to me and to many others even though her husband was not always kind to her.

When Nattie lay sick on his bed with fever, thinking that he would join his mother, I gave him some nettles as I thought that they would help heal him. Of course I was wrong. It only have him itches and allergies. But still, he held onto it, even though it must have made him worse. Many years later, he would show me how he preserved it in one of his books. He would tell me how it consoled him in lonely hours because it reminded him of me.

When was it when I first knew that I loved him? When did I first realize how his smile melted ever core of me or how his voice became sweeter to me than the music of harps and violins. I do not know. Was I only taught how wonderful he was?

Maybe.

By the time he got to asking my father's permission for my hand, he told us to wait till I am eighteen. I was furious but there was some wisdom in Father's words: "Everyone needs time to grow Pup."

I always followed Nattie, because people say that I was made to follow him. Every time he was away, he sent instructions to my maids: to omit certain foods for my diet, to make sure that I was never out in the rain, and to make sure that someone was always with me each time I walked out. He sent me dresses and gowns with notes saying: "Wear this next time we meet." Even Mother and Nan found it a bit too much. Everything was arranged so that I could not exist without him.

At sixteen, the queen of Orlais invited me to her court. I badly wanted to go, but he told me to refuse it. We quarreled, but as always, he always won. At the same time, he got summoned to the Free Marshes. It did not occur to him that perhaps as his future wife, I would have wanted to go with him. All our decisions should be for "what is good for us" not "what is good for me" or for him. A wise person told me that when you love someone, you lose your freedom. I was not ready to lose my freedom because I thought I never had it.

Granted that being with Nattie was intoxicating, it was also suffocating.

One time when I was at Amaranthine, Delilah and I met a young bann in the village. Perhaps choosing to spoil us and flatter us as ladies of high rank, he invited us to the inn and treated us with heaping amounts of lobster. Perhaps I ate too much and after an hour, I felt a strong pain in my stomach. Anyone would know what that meant. Thankfully the bann allowed me to use his toilet, but on our way to his room, who should we meet but my fiancé, who fell at him in a rage. Their fighting alarmed all the inn's tenants.—a lot of them were visiting lords and their wives. Nattie would not stop beating the poor man, even after my protests. Thankfully he did stop when he, along with everyone watching, heard a loud low sound coming from me. The hall stank with the smell. Then he believed me. The embarrassment was too much for a girl of seventeen to apologized but did not let me out of his sight again in Amaranthine.

Nattie always had a solution for everything. For my first court session, he researched everyone who was coming to me and came up with judgments in advance. It was as if I only had to read from a list, a script, as if I could not come up with my own decisions.

I do not know what it was that made me snap, but the last time we went up that same tower and surveyed at the castle and its lands before me, I knew what it was: a prison. As he gazed upon me, ever so lovingly after many years, I felt something sharp at the back of my throat.

But I had to say it. "I do not know if what I am doing now is right or wrong, but I know I have to do this: I have to end this."

At first, he laughed about it as if I was joking, but the seriousness of my face probably convinced him that I really meant what I said. He was silent for a while. His eyes displayed a certain blankness. When he spoke, suppressed emotion filled his voice, "What about the wedding?"

"There will be no wedding. I want some time on my own to think things over. I need to find myself first, before starting my life with someone."

"That someone is me, I hope?" His hand grasped for mine. I withdrew it in response.

"I don't know." I avoided his dark eyes, those dark eyes, which were desperately searching for mine. "Don't you sometimes feel that you only love me because you have been taught to love me?"

"Maybe, but it doesn't matter. I do not care if someone else told me to love you. What matters to me is that I do. You love me, right?"

"Sometimes, love is not enough. I am asking for my freedom."

"You are asking too much because you are asking to disappear from my life."

"I need this. You need this."

"But I need _you_. We have known each other all our lives. I have given all my life to you. Please don't throw it away."

I suppressed a tear. It was the first time I had seen him beg. "I have given my all of my life to you. I need to live my life for myself."

I was about leave when his hand grasped for mine. His grip was not tight but it seemed to pull me back like gravity. At last I turned to look at him. He knelt down like the time he proposed to me. "Please, do not leave me."

I knelt beside him, gently loosened his grip, I returned the ring he gave me years ago. Lightly kissing his soft brow, I whispered. "Goodbye, Nattie."

I left him there on his knees. Summoning a carriage, I went home the next day.

Coming home unattached came as a surprise for my family, yet they understood what I needed even though I did not understand it myself. It was this time, my home stopped becoming a prison. It simply became a home. But even homes can be invaded.

Their family performed their annual visit of Highever a few months later. Nattie was not there. His father told me, with a glint in his eye, that he has no business left in Highever. Of course, he must hate me. Delilah did not breathe a word about Nattie to me.

Even though part of me knew that I needed to be free of him, part of me still wanted him especially when the sun was out—that time of year when we went for long walks. That year, Mother found another companion for me since she could not let me walk out without suitable male company. His name was Dairren—a son of one of her friends since childhood. Dairren was sweet, handsome and gentlemanlike, but he was not Nattie.

In our walks, Nattie was often too busy making sure that no branches hit me while I tried to convince him to listen to the poems I recited. Dairren was different: he was the one who recited poetry. Sure, a few nettles stung my skin but I did not mind. I was free. But when Dairren suddenly uttered Brother Chanson's rhythms about the leaves, I suddenly found myself sobbing. It was the one poem that Nattie listened to. Dairren stopped. For a few moments, he was in the awkward position of deciding what to do with a crying lady—even my maids who mother insisted to come did not know what to do. I tried to make myself stop crying but I couldn't. Remembering Nattie was too painful. As I was wiping away my tears, Dairren took me in his arms, and gently said, "I am sorry milady, for distressing you. I did not realize that this ballad would make you unhappy."

I was about to utter a reply between my sobs when I heard rushing footsteps. Rough hands parted me from Dairren and pushed me away. I hit the ground. I looked up and could not believe my eyes: a fight was ensuing between Dairren and Nattie who came out of nowhere. I should have known. It was he who taught me how to sneak up on people.

The fight was not looking well. Dairren was a skilled fighter, but not as skilled as Nattie. He could only dodge a few of Nattie's fist attacks. Dairren was almost useless without a shield. Instinctively, I charged and created a space between Dairren and Nattie. I found myself dodging Nattie's fists. I knew just what he would do: a jab on the right to distract his attacker of his stronger left attack. He always threw his weight on that last left handed attack that it was easy for me to evade it and then pull him down to the ground with it, but like he taught me: I did not give my opponent a blow on the neck.

"I believe…congratulations…are in order," he grunted as he tried to get up. "Is it that easy to find a replacement for me, Bel?"

I ignored him as I helped him up. The smell of beer was mingled with his once fragrant breath. "If you leave now, we will not breathe a word to Father of your trespassing."

He scoffed, "I recall him say that I am always welcome here, or has that changed too?"

"Leave now before the soldiers find you."

"Still concerned for me Bel? Say it like you mean it."

"Leave," I replied coldly.

"Better, but still not there."

Anger welled up inside me, I screamed: "I want you gone!"

"You really mean that?"

"I do, and if I see you skirting Highever without an invitation, I will have you disgracefully thrown out."

He was silent for a moment, looking on the ground. When he looked up to me, suppressed tears that were welling up in his eyes. "I love you so much—so much that it hurts too much."

With that, he backed off and disappeared into the woods. That was the last time I ever saw him. I did not let him see my tears.

To explain Dairren's bruises, Dairren and I had to make up a story that we were attacked by a bear which I had skillfully driven away. Thankfully everyone believed it. I had defeated a bear before and my father boasted about it with his friends at court.

A few months later, I was invited again to Orlais. This time, I gladly accepted the invitation. Queen Celeste made me attend to her. At times, she invited me to her council at times to speak my mind and to give my "humble opinion as a woman." I did not see his majesty King Cailan for the queen always received him in her private chambers during his "stately" visits. In Orlais, I was free—more or less. I was happy, although I did miss my family and often cried about them.

I did not hear from Nattie ever again. Some people had told me that he had gone to the Free Marshes. Wherever he is and whatever he is doing, I hope he is not thinking of me. Sometimes, I must admit that I still think of him, but at least in Orlais, there are not many things that remind me of him. No matter what I do, I do not believe that I will forget him. Someday, I hope that he will forget the pain that I inflicted on him.

Pain is like a prison: it takes time to be free of it. When you think you are freed of it, the memories of it will come and chase you back. Still you hope: even though the memories are there, time will numb the pain. Someday you hope for the pain to pass.

I am still hoping.


End file.
